OREANDA-NEWS. September 19, 2014. Due to overcapacity in our rig portfolio, Statoil will lay up the COSL Pioneer rig in the fourth quarter of 2014.

The rig is currently carrying out an assignment on the Visund field and is scheduled to complete this work at the end of September.

“After a careful review of our drilling plan, we find it necessary to suspend COSL Pioneer for the time being,” says rig procurement responsible Tore Aarreberg.

In the beginning of July Statoil also announced that the drilling rig Scarabeo 5 will be temporarily suspended. Scarabeo 5 will be taken out of operations at the end of September for the rest of the year.

“At the moment we have three rigs contracted from COSL Drilling Europe. Our offshore organisation enjoys excellent cooperation with the contractor’s drilling teams, and COSL Pioneer has demonstrated consistent, high efficiency in drilling operations. We are in close dialogue with the contractor concerning how the suspension of the rig will be implemented in practice, and we continue to look forward to many years of cooperation with COSL on the Norwegian shelf,” Aarreberg says.

The rig is contracted until 2016 and will be used for drilling and completion of production wells on the Norwegian continental shelf.

COSL Pioneer being taken out of operation for a shorter period will have no impact on Statoil’s production targets or planned exploration activity on the Norwegian shelf. The company will still be drilling 20-25 exploration wells on the Norwegian shelf in 2014, where the company operates about two-thirds of all wells.